The results Eurobarometer state that the most important aspects of education relate to individual teachers, in particular the teacher’s ability to engage and motivate students. According to these studies, EU citizens acknowledge that various skills can be obtained outside of formal education. Youth Strategy of EU points out the importance of non‐formal education sport activities, that help to develop cross‐sectoral skills. From Eurobarometer results one can derive that young people, who take part in non‐formal educational activities are more likely to actively participate in the decision‐making of their communities. Based on these insights, this project aims to empower youth workers to develop methods to create learning programs to engage and motivate young people to deal with their surrounding natural living rural or/and urban environment on mental, social and physical levels for their learning. Such specifically tailored learning programs will provide young people with learning experiences that help them to obtain cross‐sectoral practical skills, increase their participation in their immediate environment and encourage them to be physically engaged in their environment.

The aim of this project is to develop learning programs that will provide possibilities for young people of learning on the move through experiential adventurous learning methods, adapted to particular living environment and tailored to particular needs and profile of young people. Within this approach learning is taking place not in a particular closed space, but by traversing a certain distance ‐ be it in a rural or urban environment ‐ and overcoming a set of challenges. We are going to equip youth workers with ideas, skills and tools in order to be able to design such learning programs tailored specifically to the profile of young people so as to their particular living environment.

The project structured as a long‐term learning journey consisting of 2 international training activities and practice phases during the follow‐up of these activities:

Activity. 1 - Training Course in Daugirdiškės

Training Course held from the 14th till 22nd of May in Daugirdiškės, Lithuania.

This training course is about how to make use of urban environment for adventure learning programmes that involve the use of digital technologies. Such programmes create opportunities to develop exploration skills and motivate young people to connect to their surrounding environment and be physically active. After accomplishing this training course you will have ideas and methods, how to use seems deprived urban environment for learning in a cool way.

Objectives of the Training Course are:

to empower youth workers to design learning programs tailored to the needs and interests of young
people using urban environment they work in;

to provide opportunities for youth workers to test various approaches, methods and technological
tools to be used for ‘Expeditions’ in urban environments;

to create a learning group environment for peer-coaching and coaching from the trainers as support
for youth workers to apply their learning to practice during the follow-up phase;

to put into practice use of methods to assess and reflect youth work practices and competences using
European recognition tools (Youthpass and Open Badges);

to collect innovative youth work methods which can be applied with inclusion youth groups living in
the deprived urban environments.

Number of participants: 27

Profile of participants: The training course will offer opportunities for 27 youth leaders, youth workers and trainers to develop their personal and professional competences.

Activity. 2 - Training Course in Weimar

Training Course held from the 24th till 30th of September in Weimar, Germany.

This training course is about how to make use of urban environment for adventure learning programmes that involve the use of digital technologies. Such programmes create opportunities to develop exploration skills and motivate young people to connect to their surrounding environment and be physically active. After accomplishing this training course you will have ideas and methods, how to use seems deprived urban environment for learning in a cool way.

Objectives of the Training Course are:

to empower youth workers to design learning programs tailored to the needs and interests of young
people using urban environment they work in;

to provide opportunities for youth workers to test various approaches, methods and technological
tools to be used for ‘Expeditions’ in urban environments;

to create a learning group environment for peer-coaching and coaching from the trainers as support
for youth workers to apply their learning to practice during the follow-up phase;

to put into practice use of methods to assess and reflect youth work practices and competences using
European recognition tools (Youthpass and Open Badges);

to collect innovative youth work methods which can be applied with inclusion youth groups living in
the deprived urban environments.

Number of participants: 27

Profile of participants: The training course will offer opportunities for 27 youth leaders, youth workers and trainers to develop their personal and professional competences.

Methodology

Our methodology is based on experiential learning, outdoor education and non‐formal education principles. Participants learned through testing their designed methods and reflecting upon the experience. Thus, learning through experience was core element in our methodology. Using participatory approach we encouraged the exchange of experience between the participants, thus enabling learning from the peers. In this project we were using the Theme Centred Interaction approach, which encourages participants to better perceive connections while learning between themselves, the group and the topic. Exploring the environment we were also using elements of Outdoor education. Overall we wanted to encourage holistic learning, combining and intersecting sectors of interest, and get away from the input‐output oriented learning.

Impact

The result of the project was that individuals who had taken part in this project increased their competence analysing and adapting their environment in order to create adventurous and attractive learning programs fitting to the constantly changing interests and needs of young people, especially those from inclusion groups in deprived rural and urban environments.Youth workers working according to the idea of this project contributed in deprived rural and/or urban areas to the variety of non‐formal learning opportunities for young people, thus possibly increasing their participation in the community matters, providing opportunities to train cross‐sectoral skills and increase physical activity. Participating organisation developed professional capacity to offer quality youth work services to their communities. The project activities and new methods are documented and disseminated at European level.

Gallery

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Testimonials

Grigoriy Grigoryev

Participant of Activity. 2

I have been to Weimar before, but never saw it in this light. The Action Bound app that we learned and used to create the adventure was a great team building exercise as well as opportunity to explore. City of Weimar is a historical place and allowing our imagination run with creation and exploration is the definition of gamefication and excitation. I still check the app for new adventures in new boundaries.

Dissemination Materials
Not available at the moment.

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CGE Erfurt e.V.

CGE Erfurt e.V. is a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Erfurt, founded in 2005 and run by young professionals, who are designing, implementing and evaluating local and international youth projects

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